This week in music: 1970 Guess Who

Let's step into The Breakfast Show Time Machine and set the dials for this week in 1970.

If you had the radio on while cruisin' around in a Chevy Chevelle or a Plymouth Road Runner, these were the song's you were probably hearing on the radio.

Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 had Simon and Garfunkel at number five with Cecilia. While Paul Simon wrote the lyrics about an unfaithful lover, the title refers to St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music in the Catholic church.

The Beatles era was coming to an end, but the group would score two final number one hits in 1970. The first of those was the Paul McCartney ballad Let It Be which on this week 47 years ago was at number four. It was the final single the group released before McCartney announced he was leaving the band. While the song has the phrase "Mother Mary comes to me", McCartney says the reference is not religious. It's a reference to his mother who died of cancer when his was 14 years old.

In the number three spot was the Illinois band The Ides of March with Vehicle. After the group had finished the song, fourteen seconds of the completed master tape for Vehicle were accidentally erased in the studio. The missing section, mostly the guitar solo, had to be spliced in from a previously discarded take.

1970 was a breakout year for The Jackson 5. ABC was the group's second straight number one hit. By the way on Billboard's alphabetical list of number one songs, ABC is the first song listed. It also has the distinction of having one of the shortest titles in chart history.

That brings us to the number one song for this week in '70. American Woman by The Guess Who would spend three weeks in the top spot. Randy Bachman says this was the band's protest song against the Vietnam War. Shortly after the song hit the charts, The Guess Who were invited to play at the White House.First lady Pat Nixon asked the band not to play American Woman because many considered it anti-American.